This week we learned how ICs can create a coaching partnership agreement with their principal, the six stages of a student-centered coaching cycle, what school leaders should look for when evaluating coaches, and more!

Subscribe to our Weekly Coaching Roundup and join over 3,000 of your coaching peers who receive fresh coaching content every Wednesday! 👇

Coaching Partnership Agreements: Principal and Coach

Partnership agreements are incredibly helpful for coaches and their peers to outline core responsibilities and create transparency around their coaching role. Lindsay Deacon walks through the steps for creating a partnership agreement with your principal. 🙏

"More often than not, principals have only a surface-level understanding of what being an instructional coach truly entails and how they can best use the coach's skills. That means a coach needs to proactively educate their principal on what an effective coaching program should look like and work independently to calibrate their efforts to support teachers."

Getting More from PD

Stephanie Toro promotes four ways teachers can maximize their professional learning sessions, even when they're not given a choice in it.

"Just as with student learners, learning among teachers is situational and based on shared experiences. . . . Teachers need opportunities to apply and integrate their understanding into specific, authentic contexts to engage in deeper understanding; otherwise those concepts remain abstract rather than concrete learning moments."

Increasing Student Learning

Diane Sweeney breaks down the six stages of a collaborative student-centered coaching cycle.

"The complex task of teaching takes time to learn. . . . If the outcome of coaching is improved student learning, then coaching has to be in-depth and sustained over time. This requires a coach and teacher (or team of teachers) to determine where the students are in their learning, design and implement instruction that is differentiated, and modify the instruction to ensure that the students meet the standards."

Cracking Eggs and Making Change.

Sharon Thomas highlights a handful of core components schools should focus on when evaluating ICs and their often misunderstood position.

"Coaches are typically viewed as valued employees, but that means that they're not often given timely feedback and support in the moment because of the perception that 'they're doing great.' Standards for what a 'good' or 'excellent' coach is are fuzzy at best and nonexistent at worst, a torturously nebulous situation for hardworking professionals like coaches who want to meet and exceed expectations to support their schools and students."

Sweetening Coaching Conversations

Vicki Collet showcases how a mentor she observed used "affirmation sandwiches" to give feedback and recommendations to their mentee.

"Affirmations sweeten a coaching conversation! . . . They are specific, including examples of the exact words that were used. Note the parentheticals that make explicit the verbal move the intern was making. Noticing and naming these specifics makes it more likely they'll be repeated in the future."

Have some interesting instructional coaching news?
Share it with TeachBoost and we'll highlight it here!